New pie from competition winner for Pieminister

William Axtell
· 24 February, 2016

A new Indian-inspired vegetarian pie is to be launched by Bristol-based pie manufacturer Pieminister to celebrate British Pie Week.

The Saag Pie-Neer is filled with a combination of pea, paneer, spinach, potato, chilli and mango, and was designed by Leah Shields, a vegetarian customer from Leeds. It beat off competition from more than 1,000 entries as part of Pieminister’s national competition to find a new vegetarian pie.

The pie will be available from Pieminister restaurants, pie pubs and independent customers from the start of British Pie Week on 7 March for an RRP of £5.

The company said the pie would then be a permanent fixture on its menus, and added it would be offering the pie to all its retail stockists such as Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Ocado.

From 7 March, Pieminister will also start reducing the price of its vegetarian pies by 50p on Mondays in its restaurant and cafés. This is a collaboration with Meat Free Monday, the campaign which aims to reduce meat consumption.

Tristan Hogg, co-founder and managing director of Pieminister, said: “My business partner Jon Simon and I have both found we’re eating a little less meat nowadays for health and environmental reasons and we’re hearing the same from our customers too. So we both felt our new pie to launch for British Pie Week just had to be meat free.

“Our Vegetarian Society Approved Heidi and Wild Shroom Classics have always been as popular as our steak and chicken pies so we wanted this new recipe to also be full-bodied and robust enough to tempt meat eaters and vegetarians alike.”

Pieminister said the new pie takes its vegetarian range to five and pointed to Mintel figures which said 35% of Britons identify themselves as semi-vegetarian, with 71% wanting more vegetarian choice.

The pie chain is also due to open two new restaurants in time for British Pie Week, one in Nottingham and a second Bristol restaurant, on Broad Quay.